Adventures In Lemonade
by Loupdargent869
Summary: A toy polar bear has caught Matthew's eye, so to earn money, he and his brother Alfred have teamed up to run a lemonade stand! But when they form an alliance with the rival stand run by the strange albino German across the street, who knows what could happen! Prucan, possible USUK, Gerita and Spamano.
1. Chapter 1

Matthew had always been a quiet child, someone who was hard to anger and a mild tempered kid, so the confusion was palpable when the across-the-street neighbors had shown up at the door with their kid Gilbert sporting a black eye, claiming that Matthew had hit him.

2 WEEKS EARLIER

Matthew stared through the toy shop window at the giant stuffed bear with its pretty red ribbon on display. He pressed himself eagerly against the glass, his breath fogging it up in his admiration.

"Mattie! We have to go look at shoes come on!" His brother Alfred yelled at him from down the shopping mall's hallway. He raced over and grabbed Matthew by the hand and started pulling him towards the shoe store where their parents were waiting.

"Mom, can I have the polar bear in that store over there?" He asked excitedly while pointing over to the display.

"Honey, we're here to buy shoes, we don't have money for bears today." She said kindly while she looked over plain brown shoes for Matthew. Alfred had dragged their father over to look at the light up shoes. Matthew looked down, disappointed. His mother furrowed her brow, but then leaned down to him with a smile.

"I have an idea! Summer vacation has just started, so why don't you make a lemonade stand so that you can earn the money for it?" His mother said to him as she bent down to size up his feet.

"That's a great idea mom!"

So that day Matthew left the mall with a dream of a white polar bear, and Alfred with light up running shoes.

Matthew and Alfred were making the signs for the stand on the grass of their front yard. Alfred was decorating his sign with flames and dragons, while Matthew took a more realistic approach with lemons and polar bears.

"Mattie, couldja pass me the red marker?" Alfred said, pushing his glasses back up his nose while smudging orange all on his face by accident with the marker he was holding.

Matthew grunted and rolled the marker towards him. They remained in comfortable silence as they worked on their masterpieces. After an hour of hard work, they had finally finished their art.

Their parents had set them up a table on the sidewalk outside of their house, with a red table cloth covering it. They had set up two deck chairs for the boys. Matthew and Alfred excitedly taped their posters to the front of the table, brought out their plastic cups and lemonade pitcher and waited.

Within the first hour, passers by on the busy road had been charmed by the two adorable boys into buying their 50 cent lemonade, and the boys had managed to rack up four whole dollars.

"At this rate Mattie, you'll have the money in no time!" Alfred said happily, passing over a cup to the nice elderly couple who had stopped for a drink.

"Your lemonade is better than the other stand, but they also have brownies so maybe you guys balance out." The old man commented. The other old man nudged him in the side with his elbow.

"Be quiet you!"

"Other stand?" Matthew said confusedly.

"Where's the stand?" Alfred yelled angrily. The old men pointed at the far off street corner, where they could see the outline of another stand.

Alfred huffed and grabbed Matthew by the hand and stormed off towards the other stand, leaving the old couple behind looking sheepish. Alfred ignored Matthew's protests against leaving the stand by itself and didn't let go until they were in front of the stand.

" Hello, what can I get you today?" Asked the boy behind the stand. He had snow white hair, dark maroon colored eyes and a thick accent. Matthew recognized him from his music class, he was the German kid Gilbert. Gilbert recognized him too.

"Oh hey there Mattie!" He said happily as he leaned across the table.

"Come to taste some of my awesome lemonade?" He asked with a mischievous grin and a wink.

Matthew didn't know why that made him go red but it did, so he hid his burning face behind his brother's shoulder. Gilbert was one of the cooler kids, so he didn't really talk to Matthew much. Matthew was surprised that he even knew his name.

"Cut the weird crap kid! This is our lemonade territory so you're just gonna have to go somewhere else!" Yelled Alfred. Gilbert just looked at him with a blank expression.

" How about we make a deal then ja?" Gilbert said seriously.

Alfred narrowed his eyes at the albino.

"What kind of deal?"

Gilbert smiled and leaned back in his chair.

"We all work at one stand, we sell our baking and you your lemonade, and the profit gets split four ways at the end of each week." He proposed, shooting Alfred a smug look while he out his feet up on the table.

"Sounds good, but we're gonna use our stand. Who's the other kid?" Alfred said looking around for the fourth member of their alliance.

"It's my bruder Ludwig, he's inside baking with some little Italian kid." Gilbert pushed the chair back and stood up, holding out his hand to Alfred.

"Do we have a deal?"

Alfred looked back at Matthew for approval. Matthew gave a small nod. Alfred turned back to Gilbert.

"Deal." He grabbed Gilbert's hand and shook it.

Gilbert leaned around Alfred and winked at Matthew. Matthew blushed and hid his face.

"Don't you wanna shake too vogelchen?" He asked, smiling normally for once.

Alfred stepped out of the way.

"Come on Mattie, it's your business too." He said encouragingly.

Matthew timidly held out his hand to Gilbert. Gilbert took it and held it gently, waiting for Matthew to shake. Matthew gave it a small shake, and Gilbert held it for a few moments after until he let it go.

"This is gonna be awesome!" He said happily. He turned back towards his stand. "I'll be over in a few minutes, so don't wait up!"

He was thankful for Alfred and Matthew leaving so that he could hide his happy blush.

"This is all going to my awesome plan!"


	2. Chapter 2

The first couple days had gone well for business, with the extra money generated by Gilbert and Ludwig's baking, Matthew was sure that he could buy the bear by the next week.

At first, Matthew had been unsure about Gilbert; why was he acting as though he and Matthew were friends? But after a while, Matthew just assumed that Gilbert was a very social person, and chose to go along with it.

Ludwig had been quiet at first, and even though he was younger than Alfred and Matthew, he was intimidating. Alfred had taken more to Gilbert, for they were both alike in ego and in loudness, and Matthew had taken much more to Ludwig, with whom he worked in companionable silence with. Ludwig eventually grew more comfortable around Matthew and they would talk excitedly about animals and books.

Gilbert didn't take to that nicely, and followed Matthew around like a puppy. He made every excuse to talk to him and to see him at his house. Matthew was surprised, but enjoyed the attention; he was used to being looked over by the other kids. Gilbert was funny though, and he made Matthew cry laughing with his crude jokes and loud ways.

At the end of the week they had split the money evenly, with five dollars for each boy, and Matthew immediately put it in his piggy bank. They had decided not to sell on Sundays so that they could have a break to play and relax.

Gilbert and Matthew were laying in the grass of the park, staring up at the clouds; they had just had a fun game of grounders with Alfred and the other kids on the play ground, but had decided to rest while Alfred kept playing.

"That one looks like a bird!" Gilbert said, pointing at a blobby cloud above them.

"You've said that about every cloud that we've seen." Matthew giggled.

Gilbert rolled onto his stomach to look at Matthew.

"I like birds because they're awesome like me, so everything should be a bird." He explained. He rolled back onto his back next to Matthew and took Matthews hand and made it point at the cloud.

"There's the beak, and those are the wings, and that's its awesome tail." He gestured to each part with his hand enclosing Matthew's.

Matthew shook his head, and flipped their hand positions so that he was guiding Gilbert's.

"No, its pancakes. See, there's the plate, and that's the stack and there's the syrup!" He said happily. Gilbert wasn't looking at the cloud but at Matthew, where he smiled softly at his happiness before he turned to see what Matthew was talking about.

"You're right." He said simply.

Matthew turned to him and smiled.

"I know."

Gilbert laughed at Matthew acting smug, and they fell back into their comfortable silence and wondered at the sky above them.

"Matthew! Matthew!" Gilbert was running at him and yelling excitedly.

Matthew didn't have time to react as Gilbert slammed into him and sent both of them flying onto Matthew's front lawn, barely avoiding knocking the entire stand over.

Gilbert sat up quickly and rubbed his forehead.

"You alright Mattie?" He asked worriedly, standing up so that he could help Matthew up.

Matthew grunted and sat up too.

"M'fine. What're you yelling about?" he asked as he took Gilbert's hand and stood.

"My other friends want to help us with our stand!"

Matthew just blinked stupidly.

"Other friends?"

Gilbert looked alarmed.

"You're my best friend though! No competition and you will be forever and ever an-"

Matthew clamped his hand over Gilbert's mouth to shut him up. It worked and Gilbert pushed away Matthew's hand and laughed loudly.

"So you know Francis and Antonio right? Francis said he was in your art class and Antonio said he was in your math's class."

"Yeah, I know them. They want to help?"

Gilbert smiled brightly.

"Yeah! They said they'll help and they don't need a cut of the money!"

Matthew was amazed that he had managed to get some of the popular kids to help him with his stand, usually it was Alfred who popular, and Matthew had gotten along better with the quieter children like Kiku Honda, a shy Japanese boy, and Heracles Karpusi, the laid back Greek kid.

"They said that they'll watch the stand for us on Friday so that you could come over to my house!"

Matthew was ecstatic. He hugged Gilbert happily, then pulled away and ran inside to tell Alfred.

Gilbert just stood and watched him run, and tried to calm his heart rate. This kid was going to be the end of him.

Gilbert knew that he couldn't have chosen a better way to go.


	3. Chapter 3

"Ugh, I am so bored!" Francis complained for the umpteenth time that day. He and Antonio had been running the stand for four hours, and while there had been lots of business, Francis very easily lost interest in things.

"It's not so bad, besides, I bet Gil and Matthew are having fun." Antonio said cheerily.

Francis remembered that they were doing this to help out Gilbert, so he accepted his work without complaint. He was good at his job; charming old ladies with his accent and flirty ways, although his cheeks were rather sore from the constant pinching.

Francis worked for five minutes more, before he came up with an escape plan.

"Hey, 'Tonio, would you like to work with Lovino while I go and get more brownies from Ludwig? I'll only be ten minutes." He said while grinning innocently, he knew that Antonio wouldn't pass on a chance to spend time with his "Lovi".

Antonio's face lit up.

"Seriously! You'd let me work with Lovi?" he said excitedly. He was too busy thinking about all the fun they would have that he didn't notice that Francis was laughing at him quietly, muffling his giggles behind his hand.

"But of course, I'll go and get him"

He returned a couple minutes later with a very grumpy Lovino. He had his arms crossed and was giving Antonio a look of complete disgust.

"Fine, I'll help you with your stupid stand huh? But I'm not gonna like it!"

He said while turning up his nose at Antonio. Francis didn't bother to tell Antonio that Lovino had had no objection to helping him when Francis asked.

Antonio, meanwhile, was in a whole other world to Lovino; he was practically jumping for joy, much to the chagrin of Lovino.

"Quit acting like an idiot, eh!" He yelled at him, batting him away with flailing hands. Antonio ducked his weak offensive attack and countered by wrapping him in a huge bear hug. Lovino screeched like a distressed cat and tried pushing Antonio's face away when he tried to plant quick kisses to his cheeks.

Francis watched this spectacle for a few minutes and left when a crowd of cooing adults had started to gather around the boys. With a slight grin he began walking back to his house.

He didn't know why he and Antonio had agreed to Gilbert's harebrained scheme with the lemonade stand, but Francis never could say no to a friend in need, especially when it came to _l'amour_ , unlike his best frenemy Arthur who would've just laughed in Gilbert's face.

Arthur was a grumpy English boy that Francis and his gang knew, and even though they were sworn enemies, they still managed to have some fun together. Francis then knew how he could get out of his promise.

He could ask Arthur to take his shift with Alfred later on today! Francis knew that even though Arthur would be one hundred percent against helping him, he owed him several favors and would keep to his side of the deal.

He took out his cell phone and dialed Arthur's number.

Arthur huffily biked his way over to Gilbert's house. Francis had called in one of the favors that he owed and he had to spend his afternoon running Gilbert's lemonade stand with some random kid.

He pulled up in front Gilbert's where he saw Francis waving him over.

"The stand is over there, you're going to work with Matthew's older brother Alfred today, try to remember his name, and he gets touchy about it if you forget." Francis said remembering the swift punch he had received from Alfred when he accidentally called him 'Allan'.

"Yes, yes, I've got it. I'm only working until four though; I have to baby sit Peter today."

Peter was Arthur's neighbor's kid that he looked after sometimes, and although he couldn't stand the brat, the fifteen dollars an hour he made everything worth it.

"I'll see you later then!" Francis called over his shoulder as he walked away.

"Later." Arthur replied nonchalantly as he began to wheel his bike over to the stand.

He shook his head to clear his bangs out of his face, and tried to smile politely at the boy behind the stand when they made eye contact.

The boy behind the stand's face paled at first, and then burst out into a fiery crimson. He fumbled around, floundering about under Arthur's gaze. Arthur supposed that it was due to him being older than the boy that he was intimidating.

He carelessly left his bike on the grass of the younger boy's lawn and walked over to him with an air of superiority and confidence, his arm extended in a friendly gesture.

"My name's Arthur, pleased to meet you."

The kid, who Arthur presumed was Alfred, wiped his hand on his trousers before he grabbed Arthur's hand too hard and held it there awkwardly. Arthur could feel how clammy he was, and tried not to show the disgust in his face as he shook the hand up and down briefly before retracting his hand, careful to wipe it off when Alfred wasn't looking.

Alfred ushered him over to the stand and began explaining how they ran it, barely sounding coherent as he stumbled over his words. Arthur was polite enough to act as though he didn't notice this. After a fifteen explanation in which Arthur really didn't learn anything, it was time for them to start selling.

As soon as Alfred had spilt half of a pitcher all over some poor lady because his hands were too shaky, Arthur knew that he was in for a long day.


End file.
